What's the Point? I Mean Besides Making Our Lives More Mundane

I got into an argument at school with my fellow classmates over M-Theory and the higher dimensions, i.e. the 11th Dimension. I am currently using the process string theory uses to achieve higher spatial dimensions in order to create a building. And one fellow said, "Why? Why do scientist waste all that money and time to think up such wacky stuff?" Of course, it never crossed his mind that architects waste a lot of time and money to create buildings based off of theoretical ideas like the primitive hut or tectonics. The latter being what we are addressing in my class. And like scientists, architects get awards for "wasting" money!

But what is the point of continuing manned missions to the moon or sending a satellite to Pluto? We won the Space Race, right? Why are scientists and astronomers still interested in wasting tax dollars (people usually think it all comes from tax dollars, but a good chunk of it comes from donations) on those things? Or why are we wasting money on building something like the Large Hadron Collider to investigate things so small they don't matter?

Hmmm... so, just let me get this straight : just because all the wonderful and magnificent things we discover with modern technology about modern physics has yet to be brought down to the level of the mundane so you can use it in a pedestrian way it is all considered pointless? Even if it was brought down to a mundane utility people would only take it for granted. Think back to the Space Race. Now think about all the technological developments that were necessary to get to the moon. A lot of money was spent, yes, and there were a lot of failures to quickly learn from. But all that technology and infrastructural developments lead to things like microwave ovens, freeze dried food, lasers, compact discs, digital watches, smaller computers, cell phones, et cetera. All of these items and more are taken for granted.


So what's the point of 11 dimensions, holographic universes, gravitons, and the LHC? So that in a few decades we can take the developments from those explorations and commercialize it to a mundane existence that the egocentric layman will take for granted. That's the point : so that you may take it for granted one day. Thanks for making the cause of understanding our world sound less worthwhile.